


I will see them when I leave here

by ageofgeek



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (bc fuck you Marvel), Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame, Sentient Infinity Stones (Marvel), Tony Stark Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26401597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ageofgeek/pseuds/ageofgeek
Summary: Tony Snaps the gauntlet, and he dies.  At least, he thinks he does.  Afterwards, he finds himself in an awfully familiar place, with a very familiar person.(otherwise known as, "we should've seen Yinsen one last time in the MCU").
Relationships: Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Ho Yinsen
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a million years late to the Endgame fix-it fic game, but I had written this almost immediately after the movie came out and just never got around to posting it. Hope you enjoy!

Tony’s eyes closed, and when he opened them, he was in a depressingly familiar cave. He blinked, Pepper’s face streaked with tears and a smile still burned into his eyelids. “ _You can rest now,_ ” she had whispered. _Didn’t know that resting meant waking up in this goddamned cave in Afghanistan_ , he thought bitterly to himself.

He was lying on a cot that was pushed into the corner, spare missile parts and sheets of paper scattered on the ground. His heart skipped a beat when he realized, _oh no, the car battery_ – but his thoughts stopped in their tracks when he realized that he was wearing a pair of jeans and one of his AC/DC shirts. There was no battery, no jumble of wires leading into his chest - just the nanotech casing that had housed his most recent suit. Looking at his arm, Tony realized that he wasn’t hurt - the unbelievable, almost unbearable pain of the infinity gauntlet was gone.

“Oh shit,” he muttered, swallowing. “I’m dead, aren’t I? Oh shit, shit, no, Pep, wait–”

“Calm down, Mr. Stark,” a voice echoed to his right, and Tony was struck by instant déjà vu. For a second, he couldn’t place the voice - it was a man, he was sure of that much, and his words had a soothing lilt to them. At first, he thought it was Bruce - _don’t tell me he died, too_ \- but the man’s accent was noticeably different.

“What, you do not remember me?” The voice asked, still not attached to a body that Tony could see. “Has it really been so long?”

A shadow passed to Tony’s left, and he jumped off of the cot, only to see a small man with wire-rimmed glasses appear in front of him. Tony’s brain screeched to a halt, and he could do nothing but stare at the smiling scientist for several moments.

“…Yinsen?”

Yinsen’s smile widened. “Really, that took you longer than I thought it would. I’m rather offended.”

Tony could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest, and he grinned wildly at Yinsen before pulling him into a hug. “I don’t know, it’s been a while since I’ve heard your voice, old man.”

“Old man?” Yinsen asked, chuckling as he patted Tony on the back. “You are now older than I am, Stark, and to tell you the truth, you’re beginning to look like it.”

The reminder of Yinsen’s untimely death pulled at Tony’s heart, and he hugged the man tighter. “Why did you do that?” He murmured. “Why didn’t you follow the plan?”

“I could ask the same of you, Tony,” Yinsen said, pulling back and looking at him with a sad mixture of amusement and disappointment that only Yinsen and Bruce could pull off. “You sacrificed yourself for the whole universe. Is it so surprising that I sacrificed myself for you?”

“Yeah, actually, it is,” Tony said, pointedly not touching the fact that, _oh yeah, he was dead too_ , with a ten foot pole. “I didn’t deserve it. Not then, and probably not now.”

“Do you still really think that that is true? Come now, Stark. For fifteen years, you have struggled, suffered…broken yourself for the world. Did you really think that I would be disappointed in you?” Yinsen smiled sadly, putting a gentle hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Did you really think that you had wasted your life?”

“Of course not,” Tony quickly denied. “You gave me fifteen more years - those were fifteen more years than I thought I’d have. And I tried to do what I thought was right, but–”

“And what did you gain in those fifteen years?” Yinsen interrupted, raising an eyebrow.

Tony stopped and thought about Pepper and Rhodey and Morgan - oh God, his daughter, his little girl - and Peter and Happy and May, and yeah, the Avengers: Bruce, Clint, Thor, Natasha, even Steve at the end. “A family. I got a family.”

Yinsen smiled again, and Tony got the feeling that that had been the correct answer. “Good.”

He sat down on the cot that Tony had vacated and patted the space next to him. “Now sit down and tell me about them.”

* * *

“No. No, Tony, no, not you. Not you too,” Steve whispered, broken and with tears streaming down his face. His body ached from the battle, but it was nothing compared to seeing Tony’s burnt and crippled body, cradled by a tearful Pepper and a crying Spider-Man.

The Iron Man gauntlet, still sparkling with the power of all six infinity stones, lay on the ground several feet away. Some might try to stop him - Strange, Danvers, maybe even Thor - so he’d have to be fast.

Steve Rogers wasn’t going to lose another friend today. Not to Thanos. And not to these stones.

* * *

“So, is this heaven? Because honestly, I didn’t expect to be back here again - that was kind of a rude awakening.”

“This is…an in-between space,” Yinsen responded, shrugging when Tony gave him a doubtful look. “I knew it as Barzakh. Others know it by other names: hamistagan, Bardo…Limbo, for Westerners.”

Tony continued looking doubtfully at him. Yinsen sighed. “Fine, then you may also view it as an extradimensional space between two realms corresponding to the soul and power stones.”

“…Hmm.” Tony hummed, looking around at the cave. “So, do I wait here for judgment or something? I mean, what do I even do here? Because spending the rest of eternity in this place sounds pretty boring.”

“You are here because it is here that you were born,” Yinsen answered, picking up a sheet of paper from beneath their feet and holding it up to the light. Tony was surprised to see that it was one of his original sketches of the Iron Man suit, broken into pieces to ensure that their captors never saw the whole picture. “Not literally born, of course - you were born in New York Presbyterian Hospital at 2:34 in the morning on May 29th, 1970–” Tony blinked at that, but didn’t interrupt “–but it is here that you were…spiritually born, so to speak.”

“‘Spiritually born’?” Tony asked skeptically, “Alright, Joel Osteen, I’ll bite - how was I ‘spiritually born’?”

“You said it yourself, or do you not remember?” Yinsen chuckled slightly as he walked over to a hot plate and turned it on. “‘Never has a greater Phoenix metaphor been personified in human history’?”

Tony winced at that. “Okay, touché, but to be fair, I was dying when I made that speech.”

“And you were dying when you snapped your fingers a few moments ago,“ Yinsen retorted, placing a kettle on the hot plate. “The man who said that - the man who sacrificed himself for the entire universe - _that_ man was born in this cave. That man,” he paused, turning to look Tony in the eye, “is the one who escaped here in a flying suit of armor and never looked back.”

This time, Tony outright flinched, looking down so he didn’t have to look Yinsen in the eye. “I came back,” he murmured, feeling guilt well up in his chest. “I tried to find your body, I swear, but the fire burned the entire camp down…”

“That’s not what I meant, Stark,” Yinsen sighed, turning fully towards him. “I don’t blame you for escaping - I do not blame you at all. I am saying that I am proud to have given my life to save yours. You have done more as Iron Man - more as Tony Stark - than I ever could have imagined. You have given my death meaning.

“I told you,” he continued, “that my family had died at the hands of the Ten Rings. That was true. But I had other family - friends, relatives, and colleagues - people who I wanted to protect. You protected them.” Tony opened his mouth to protest, but Yinsen stopped him. “You protected them when you flew a nuclear missile into the wormhole in New York. You protected them when you helped defeat Ultron. And you protected them just minutes ago, when you gave your life for the universe.”

“You made mistakes, yes,” Yinsen continued, smiling sadly at the tears that had welled up in Tony’s eyes. “Sometimes very big mistakes. But your heart was always in the right place. You were always doing what you thought was right. You are a hero, Stark. You are a hero now, and you were a hero when you came out of this cave.”

Tony sniffled, trying to swallow over the lump in his throat. This conversation was one that he had thought about having for years. He had asked himself over and over again if Yinsen would be proud of him. If Yinsen would have regretted giving his life for him. In some ways, Yinsen’s opinion had mattered infinitely more to Tony than his own father’s opinion of him. So to have him so clearly say that he was a hero, that he had deserved to survive captivity in Afghanistan? It was more than he had ever hoped to have.

“Um, thanks,” Tony said after several moments of silence, looking up to see Yinsen now sitting at the table and pouring tea. “I…I don’t really know what to say…”

“You don’t have to say anything, Stark,” the other man responded, nudging a cup of tea in front of the chair adjacent to him. “Although I will insist that you sit down and have some tea with me. It may be the last chance that we get to talk for a long while.”

Tony got up from the cot and obediently sat down next to Yinsen, picking up the cup and taking a sip before realizing what he had just said. “What do you mean, it might be the last chance?” Tony asked, glancing frantically over at Yinsen. “Are you going somewhere? I’m dead, you’re dead, we should be able to talk! This is bullshit, who do I have to talk to about this–?”

“Tony,” Yinsen interrupted, laughing and putting a stop to Tony’s slightly panicked babbling. “Tony, it is not me who may be going somewhere. Your life was taken by the infinity stones, yes?” When Tony hesitantly nodded, Yinsen continued, “Then the infinity stones may grant you life again.”

“What are you talking about?” Tony asked, even more panicked than before. “Shit, is Thanos still alive? Who the hell is using the stones?”

“Captain Rogers is,” Yinsen responded, taking a calm sip of his tea. “Or, at least, he will be.”

* * *

Peter’s wails echoed in his ears, but his enhanced hearing could even pick up Pepper’s quiet sniffling and Rhodes’ muffled sobs. They didn’t deserve this. Tony didn’t deserve this. He deserved to live a long and happy life, with his daughter, wife, family, and friends.

Now that he was gone, Steve could _see_ Tony Stark so clearly: despite his arrogant façade, despite his rough edges, Tony had given everything he had for the world. He had laid down on the wire and let the entire universe crawl over him. He had fought so hard and so long, and he deserved to be happy. He deserved to rest, and not in the way that Pepper had whispered to him as he lay dying. He deserved _life_.

It was that thought that propelled him forward, dropping his broken shield and Mjolnir and rushing towards the gauntlet. After a second, he heard Thor shout his name, but he ignored him. As he reached the stones, he felt a hot, orange rope wrap around his waist and restrain him - Strange’s magic, he thought to himself - but he summoned his last bit of physical strength and broke free.

Scrambling to pick up the gauntlet, he didn’t slip it on, but instead, pried one stone off of it. He couldn’t wield all six infinity stones, but he could wield one. And one was all he needed.

* * *

“Are you fucking serious?!” Tony asked incredulously, jumping up from his seat and beginning to pace around the room anxiously. “He’s using the stones? Right now? Fuck, you have to stop him! What if he fucks it up? What if he brings back Thanos instead of me? What if he brings back a not-me?! I don’t want to be in a ‘Pet Sematary’ situation here, Yinsen, ahh, shit, SHIT–”

“Calm down, Stark.” Yinsen took a small sip of his tea as Tony flailed. “You have too little faith in your teammates. Do you think that Captain Rogers does not have the will to wield the stones?”

“‘Doesn’t have the will’?” Tony scoffed. “No, that’s the exact opposite of what I think. I think he has too much fucking will. I think he’s going to bring back every single thing that died on that battlefield, including the bad guys.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Yinsen replied. “The ‘bad guys’ already know their place. You are here and not elsewhere because your fate is still in flux.”

“Are you saying that Cap is going to bring me back to life?” Tony asked, still very panicked at the idea.

“Do you want to be brought back to life?” Yinsen asked in return, and Tony paused at that. Did he want to go back? Pepper had said that he could rest now, that they would be okay without him. But he knew her better than anyone else - even with his eyes hazy and filled with tears and soot, he could see how strong she was trying to be, how she was trying to let him go but desperately didn’t want to.

He thought about Morgan, his little girl who he had fought so hard to be able to save, and he thought about Pepper being a widow, a single mom, trying to run a company and raise a daughter at the same time. The thought made his chest hurt. He had always tried to be better to Morgan than Howard had been to him. He had always told Morgan that he loved her, and he always tried to support her and encourage her. But if he stayed dead…how different would he and Howard be? Yeah, Morgan would know for sure that her dad had loved her, but it wouldn’t change the fact that he was gone. And Tony intimately knew what that felt like. Tony would never be able to see her grow up - never be able to encourage her in projects that didn’t involve macaroni and glue or papier maché.

He swallowed heavily, but forced himself to think beyond Morgan, to a boy who may as well be his son. Peter. He had just gotten Peter back. It was the memory of Peter that had pushed him to look into Lang’s crazy time travel idea, and Peter was the first of the Dusted that Tony saw on that battlefield. The kid had already lost so much - first his parents, then his uncle - he didn’t deserve to lose another dad, did he? (Did Tony deserve to lose another child? He thought about JARVIS and Vision, and even Ultron, however misguided he was).

Once he began thinking about Peter, he couldn’t stop thinking about everyone else. Rhodey - his best friend, his anchor, his brother - and how they had lost and found each other again and again. If Tony died…God, would he keep looking? Tony knew how stubborn James Rhodes was, and despite all evidence to the contrary, he knew that Rhodey would never give up hope for Tony, as long as he lived.

He thought about the Avengers. Clint, who had only recently come back to them after losing his entire family. Bruce, who Tony had (to his shame) ignored for the past 5 years after the man decided to embrace himself to become a hybrid Hulk scientist. Thor, who Tony had also ignored and let wallow in his own guilt and fear - Thor, who had lost almost everything. Natasha, who had shouldered the weight of the Avengers after the Snap, only to give her life in one final act of sacrifice. And finally, Steve. Steve, who had never moved on, not from the Snap, not from Barnes, not from his time in the ice. Steve, who never stopped fighting. Steve, who tried so hard and yet so often came up short ( _I said we’d lose, and you said we’d do that together too_ ).

But then he thought of other memories. He thought of Clint keeping him company in the workshop after Ultron, bringing pizza and beer and shitty B-movies to keep his mind occupied. He thought of Bruce and him tinkering in the lab, both in their own worlds but still aware of each other to be able to wordlessly pass wrenches and holograms between them. He thought of Thor playing Mario Kart at obscene hours of the night, whose laughter shook the walls of the compound and never failed to make Tony laugh in return. He thought of Natasha, and how despite their rough start, he felt perfectly safe and happy curling his head on her lap as they planned team bonding exercises and time travel alike. And lastly, he thought of Steve, and how Tony’s stomach had fluttered embarrassingly the first time that he had called him “Tony” instead of “Stark.” How they had worked their way through every shitty diner in Brooklyn when their nightmares had kept them up. How Steve had listened to the playlists that Tony had put together for him on repeat (Sam had instilled a love for Marvin Gaye in the captain, but Steve’s love of Queen was all Tony). How he had come down to the workshop and shyly apologized for the things he had said on the Helicarrier, how he had said that Tony wasn’t just a man in a suit, that he was an Avenger. And Tony remembered the exact moment that he had stopped seeing Steve as the propaganda poster-boy that his dad had never shut up about, and started seeing him as an insecure and stubborn man out of time who only wanted a home.

And suddenly, it wasn’t just the original Avengers that he was thinking about, but the extended team that had been forged out of necessity and fear and a sense of belonging. He thought about Sam, Wanda, and Vision; about the Wakandans, T'Challa, Shuri, and Okoye; about Strange and Wong; about the Guardians - assholes though they were - and spending endless days and weeks on that ship with Nebula after watching Quill, Drax, and Mantis fade away into ash; and about the newest addition to their group, Carol Danvers, who had appeared like a goddamn avenging angel to save him on the Benatar, and to save them all again during the battle against Thanos. He thought of Scott Lang, an idiot who turned out to be the linchpin of this entire plan, and how he had fought so hard to be able to see his family again. And finally, he thought of Nick Fury, who appeared in the shadows of his Malibu mansion like a Bond villain fifteen years ago; Nick Fury, who thought of himself as a cynic, and yet believed enough in heroes to form the Avengers.

All of these people - all of these lives that he had touched - he would miss all of them. And for the first time, Tony knew that they would miss him. Suddenly, he could see his own funeral as if it was already happening: people crying and dressed in black, maybe as it rained, as he was buried in a grave next to his parents. They didn’t deserve that.

“I do,” Tony whispered, answering Yinsen’s question. “I want to live.”

Yinsen smiled.

* * *

“Captain Rogers, don’t–!”

Steve could hear Strange shouting at him, but he ignored him. He grasped the gauntlet desperately and took the soul stone out of its casing. The stone came to him easily, as if it wanted him to take it.

 **_You have lost much_ ** , it whispered. **_So many of your loved ones rest within our walls…tell us…which shall we release…? We can give them back to you…for a price…_ **

**_Sarah Rogers?_ **

**_Margaret Carter?_ **

**_Howard Stark?_ **

**_…Natalia Romanova…?_ **

Their names floated in his mind, and God, for a moment, he wanted, desperately, to give them life - life that they all deserved. But no. Only one would return today. Steve would only risk one.

_Anthony Stark. Give me back Anthony Stark. You took him from us. And now?_

_You’re going to give him back._

* * *

Tony turned around and looked at the door that led outside. He could have sworn that he had heard Steve’s voice from the other side of it. “Cap?”

_Give him back. I’m not gonna ask a second time._

“What’s happening?” Tony asked Yinsen, running over to the steel door and trying to see through the window. But all he could see was an orange haze, and an endless, still pool of water. “What the hell is this place…?”

**_We require a sacrifice–_ **

_We’ve sacrificed more than enough to you today! I told you to bring him back!_

“It won’t be long now,” Yinsen murmured, smiling sadly. “Stark, will we part ways again without saying goodbye?”

Tony turned back to the other man and grabbed his arm desperately. “No, no, Yinsen, come with me! You can come too–”

“You know that that’s not how this works,” the doctor chided gently, grasping Tony’s hand. “My place is here, and your place is out there, for many years to come.”

“You have been given another chance at life,” he continued, “and this time, your life will be your own. You no longer belong to the world, Tony. Now, you belong to yourself.”

The tears that had begun to pool in Tony’s eyes slowly began to drip down his face. “Thank you,” he whispered, lurching forward and hugging Yinsen one last time. “Thank you, Yinsen.”

“No, Tony…

“Thank _you_.”

* * *

Steve heard screaming as fiery pain shot up his arm, a pain so hot that it became numbing. Distantly, he recognized the voice as his own, but he couldn’t stop himself. All he could think about was Tony.

The stone was resisting, now that it knew that he wouldn’t give it a sacrifice. Not him, not Tony, and not anyone else. This stone had already taken Natasha, and Nebula’s sister, and half of the goddamn universe. He wouldn’t give it anyone else.

 _We do not trade lives, Captain_ , the ghost of Vision whispered in his head, and he clung to that memory in the Wakandan forest with everything he had. He showed it to the soul stone. _See? See this?! We don’t trade lives. We won’t play your games anymore._

He thought about all of the sacrifices they had already been forced to make. Clint’s face when they all returned from their missions and Nat wasn’t with him. Nebula’s eyes when she explained what her father did to her sister on Vormir. Bucky, Wanda, Sam - all of them looking so scared as they faded away into dust. Tony’s broken expression when he stumbled off of the ship five years ago and lurched into Steve’s arms, saying tearfully, “I lost the kid.” That should be enough. It _is_ enough.

Another burst of fire erupted along his arm, and he shouted in pain again, but he didn’t let go. He forced himself to keep thinking about Tony, about all of the times that he had been annoyed and amused and entranced and devastated by him. Fighting on the Bartons’ farm, fighting over Vision, fighting in Germany, fighting in Siberia. Feeling like he wanted to die after Tony literally passed out from being so angry at him ( _where were you, Steve?!_ ).

But balanced with every one of those memories was one where Tony showed just how much he cared: Tony explaining how Wanda had showed him his greatest fear (and now that vision had come true); Steve finally learning just how much JARVIS had meant to Tony when he found him crying in his workshop after Ultron; Tony giving Steve his shield back. Tony making jokes about Steve’s age, but never making him feel stupid when he didn’t understand technology or a pop culture reference. Tony helping set up team bonding activities, even when he was no longer a part of the team. Tony funding the entire Avengers, funding their medical bills and equipment, making sure that they were all _safe_. That was who Tony was. More than anything else, he just wanted to protect the people he loved, and he had done it. He had saved them all. And he deserved to live alongside the people who he had saved.

 _Do you understand now?_ Steve mentally gritted his teeth, forcing the stone to confront these images and memories head on. _Do you get it? We’ve given you your sacrifice. Now give us this. Give me this._

 **_…Very well, Steven Grant Rogers…_ ** the stone hissed, and for a moment, the pain that ripped through Steve’s arm increased to an almost unbearable level. He choked on his tongue, and he could feel hands supporting his shoulders to keep him from tipping over.

**_We will give you one soul. But are you sure you want his?_ **

Steve hesitated for a moment at that. He only had one chance, one “freebie,” and of course, he immediately thought of Natasha. She hadn’t deserved her fate anymore than Tony had, and God, Steve loved her just as much as he loved Tony. How could he choose between two of his best friends?

But then he thought of what both of them would say to question. They were both self-sacrificial to a fault, of course, so Steve could imagine a rather comical scenario where Tony argued that Nat should be saved while she argued the opposite. And he knew that there was a real possibility that when Tony realized that Steve had been offered this chance by the stone, he would hate him even more for not saving Nat instead. But then he thought about what Nat would say. About how even in the depth of her despair and exhaustion after the Snap, how she would always smile after coming back from visiting Tony, Pepper, and Morgan. How Morgan called her “Auntie Nat.” How Nat had all of these knowing looks and inside jokes with Tony, Pepper, and Rhodes, from years of a hard-fought friendship created while he was still in the ice.

And Steve could so perfectly picture Natasha in his head that it made him want to cry. Because he knew that wherever she was right now, she was smiling at him and telling him to let her go. Telling him that she had fulfilled her mission, but Tony hadn’t. It wasn’t a matter of who deserved to live - both of them did - but it was a matter of who needed to live.

 _Yes_. Steve answered, confidently. _Yes. Him._

For a second, the fire grew even hotter, and he felt liquid sluggishly dripping down his neck and arm. White light burst in front of his eyelids, and he experienced a brief moment of relief before he passed out.

* * *

When Tony opened his eyes again, he was looking up at a white ceiling, and he felt weird and floaty - a sensation that he immediately identified as being jacked full of morphine. He groaned, closing his eyes again to ward off the nausea.

“Tony?” A raw voice whispered, and he suddenly felt an achingly familiar hand press into his own. Pepper, oh God - the anxiety in her voice made Tony instinctively struggle to open his eyes, and he groaned again. He needed to see her - was she okay? What about everybody else? Was Yinsen right? Is he actually alive?

“No, hey, hey, it’s okay, just rest, honey, it’s okay, we’re all okay,” Pepper whispered soothingly, sounding more confident now that she knew that Tony could hear her. “Bruce? Bruce, he’s awake!”

He heard heavy footsteps that he had learned to associate with Bruce’s Hulk-Banner hybrid form over the past couple of months, and then Bruce’s voice. “Tony? Tony, can you hear me?”

“Urhggh,” Tony mumbled, trying to get his mouth to work properly. “Y-yeah…I…I’m…Pep…”

“I’m here, Tony,” Pepper said tearfully, and after over 20 years of knowing her, he could hear the smile in her voice without seeing it. His lips twitched, and he managed to squeeze her hand.

“Is…e’ryone…? Peter…Steve…Morgan, where–?”

“Everybody’s fine,” Bruce said soothingly, and Tony could hear him adjusting his IV. “The others are waiting outside, and Happy is looking after Morgan. We’re all safe.”

Pepper slowly lifted his hand to her mouth and brushed her lips against it. Tony could feel the wetness of her tears, and he desperately wanted to hug her, kiss her, hold her close, but Bruce must’ve upped the dose of morphine. He could feel himself drifting off again…

“You did it, Tony,” Pep whispered before he fell asleep. “Thanos and his army are dead. We’re all safe. You saved us, honey.”

* * *

~ one month later ~

“Are you serious? Blue jello?” Tony scoffed, outraged, as Morgan giggled. “Are you keeping the good stuff all to yourself?” He made a show out of looking all around her, peaking into her hair and smiling as she shrieked in laughter.

“Daddy! I don’t have any, I promise!” Morgan giggled, and Tony knew that he (and Steve) had made the right decision, because what the hell would he have done if he hadn’t heard his little girl laugh again?

Of course, he could’ve done without the permanent scarring and loss of a limb, but as Rhodey had said, sometimes you get dealt a bad hand (pun not intended).

Tony had woken up a little less than a month ago, and Bruce had told him that they had tried everything to save his right arm - even consulting with Helen Cho and Maya Hansen’s notes to see if Extremis or the Cradle could repair the damage - but in the end, the damage had just been too extensive. Tony never would have regained the use of his arm, and with a mysterious infection spreading quickly (probably caused by the use of the stones), they had thought that it was best to amputate sooner rather than later.

Distantly, he realized that the road ahead would be hard, and that he was probably bound for a hard emotional reaction in the future (he had learned this the hard way a few years ago - Rhodey had bounced back surprisingly quickly after the fight in Germany had paralyzed him, but around 6 months later, Tony had found him collapsed in the bathroom of the compound crying his eyes out). But for now, he was okay - he was alive, he was recovering, and he got to spend loads of time in bed with his wife and daughter, complaining about jello and talking with his friends.

“Are you sure about that, sweetie?” Pepper asked teasingly as she walked in with a bottle of water. “Because I’m pretty sure that I saw you sneaking those red jello cups into the back of the fridge.”

Tony gasped even louder, looking at Morgan with a betrayed expression. Morgan laughed, and Tony could see a familiar glint of mischief in her eyes. “My own daughter! Betrayed by my own daughter, et tu, Brute–?”

Pepper rolled her eyes and tossed the water bottle on his chest as he moaned in dramatic betrayal. “Alright, Caesar, let’s go - Jessica’s ready with your physical therapy, and after that, we have to get ready for dinner tonight.”

“What about the Spiderling?” Tony asked, ruffling Morgan’s hair and smiling as she squawked and jumped off the bed. “He was still undecided when I talked to him.”

“Peter’s doing okay,” Pepper answered, smiling reassuringly when Tony looked even more concerned at that answer. “I texted May around an hour ago - they’re both gonna come up to the tower tonight, but they might not stay for long.”

Morgan pouted at that, and Tony grinned. Morgan and Peter had become as thick as thieves in the month since the battle, and honestly, although he was mostly ecstatic to see his kids getting along, a small part of him was also dreading the inevitable science kid team up that would happen in the near future, especially if Harley or (God forbid) the bots got involved.

“How about everybody else?” Tony asked his wife, obediently clicking opening the water bottle and taking a sip when she looked pointedly at it. “Was Thor able to convince the Guardians to stay?”

Pepper nodded. “And Captain Danvers will be there as well - she said that she would be bringing a few friends too, if that was okay with us.”

Morgan lit up at the mention of her newly-dubbed “Aunt Carol.” Her excitement was probably 50% for the woman herself, and 50% for her alien cat named Goose, who Fury seemed to adore and who Quill seemed to be inexplicably terrified of (it had been a weird month).

“The more the merrier,” Tony answered, winking at Morgan and smiling as she giggled.

Holding onto his waist and butt (Tony had tried flirting with her the first dozen times they had done this, but it had gotten old pretty quick), Pepper helped him transfer into the wheelchair next to his bed. Now that he was back in the compound, Pepper and Rhodey had been helping him the most with rehab and physical therapy, although an actual physical therapist came twice a week to help him with exercises. His prognosis was good: his shoulder and torso burns were healing, and his muscles were getting stronger every day. But he would still need to learn how to use a prosthetic (with vibranium courtesy of Wakanda, and no, he was very carefully not thinking about Barnes), and it would take a while longer for the muscles in his legs to fully recover.

The physical therapy was hard, and the reduced mobility was frustrating, and as his therapist said, there were good days and bad days. But he was recovering, and what was more, he was now recovered enough to be able to attend (and host!) what he had named the "Fuck Thanos And His Big Eggplant Face" party (subtitled: "We Won, Dickwad"). Steve and Pepper - as part of the planning committee - had looked at him disapprovingly when he had proposed the name, but come on, Tony had saved the universe, couldn’t he have this one thing? (It helped that both Pep and Steve were vulnerable to his puppy dog eyes when he utilized their full potential).

The dinner had been planned for almost two weeks now, and it would include all of the major players in the final fight against Thanos, both Snapped and Unsnapped. The core Avengers and their families, the Guardians, as well as Thor and the remaining Asgardian leaders (including Loki, who was apparently _not_ dead? Tony wasn’t really sure what had happened there - again, it had been a weird month). The wizards were coming (he was pretty sure that Strange was bringing a date, and boy, he couldn’t wait to tease him about that), and so were the Wakandans and the Pyms (seeing Janet again, alive and well, had been yet another surprise). Fury had even rounded up what was left of SHIELD.

The dinner wouldn’t just serve the purpose of bringing everyone together to get drunk and eat delicious food and revel in the fact that, _oh shit, we’re alive_ \- it was also a diplomatic endeavor. Tony and Steve had painstakingly convinced every super or meta human (or alien) who would be in attendance to sign a treaty of sorts. The document wasn’t legally binding, but it was a promise to each other: a promise to come together again if another intergalactic threat like Thanos ever threatened the universe.

Steve had confessed to Tony that he was intimidated by the prospect of more international and intergalactic politics in the near future, and Tony had to agree. The people of Earth (and the entire universe, for that matter) were looking to them for answers on how to deal with problems like population flux, environmental disasters, and governmental restructuring - problems that had been caused by both the Snap and the Unsnap. In several days, the UN was holding a summit to address the major crises in this new era, and although Tony would be working as a consultant, he was glad to not be taking point on this one.

If someone had asked Tony ten years ago if he was willing to let others take charge in the event of a crisis - if he was willing to hand off the reins to a new generation of heroes - he would have laughed in their face and then gone back to manically building suits. It was that anxiety and fear that had driven Tony and Bruce to create Ultron (and look at how well that turned out). But now? Tony had never been more confident in his choice to take on a more advisory role, and let people like Rhodey, T’Challa, and Carol lead the way. After all, Tony _was_ a futurist, and he was certainly not one to stand in the way of progress.

“Mommy, can I go play with Uncle Bruce?” Morgan asked as she hopped alongside Tony’s wheelchair.

Tony smiled and ruffled her hair, eliciting a “Daddy, noooo” from his daughter. “What, you don’t want to spend time with your old man?”

“You’re not old, Daddy,” Morgan said stubbornly, pursing her lips so that she looked just like her mother. “And Uncle Bruce said he was gonna test the new weather stabilizers and that I could watch as long as I stayed inside and I promise I’ll watch through the window, and--”

“Alright, alright,” Pepper interrupted with a laugh, “Off you go. Just make sure to do whatever Uncle Bruce tells you--”

“Follow lab safety, got it!” Morgan repeated back with a toothy grin, kissing Tony on the cheek before running off down the hallway.

“She’s getting cheeky, isn’t she?” Pepper muttered with a pointed, raised eyebrow in Tony’s direction. “I wonder where she’s gotten that from.”

Tony laughed. “I resent the implication, Ms. Potts - I am a _great_ father.”

Pepper smiled softly. “Yes. Yes, you are, Tony.”

He turned around to look up at her, and when he met his wife’s eyes, he couldn’t stop a feeling of sheer joy and gratefulness from bursting in his chest. Tony had no doubt that if he had died in that battle, the world - and his family - would have gone on without him. But thank God (and thank Steve Rogers) that _he_ didn’t have to go without _them._


	2. Coda

~ three months later ~

“You know, Nick, I saw that SHIELD was requesting representation at the summit on Tuesday, and I found that a little weird, considering that SHIELD isn’t supposed to exist anymore.”

“ _Tony_.”

Steve was wearing his patented _disapproval_ face as he looked at Tony, but they had gotten a lot closer over the past few months, so Tony knew that while Captain America may be scolding him right now, Steve Rogers had been trying to find a way to ask the same thing for the past 10 minutes.

“What?” Tony asked rhetorically. “I’m just worried about, oh, I don’t know, a secret Nazi organization taking advantage of a vulnerable world order.”

“HYDRA has been purged from SHIELD,” Fury said, his hologram flickering in irritation (or maybe that was just Tony’s imagination). “The world needs people who know what the hell is going on, and--”

“Oh, come on, Nick,” Tony interrupted, turning to take a bite of the roast beef sandwich that he had ordered for lunch (thank God that the local deli had survived the end of the world). “I thought we were past these kinds of lies. The only ones who know the full story about Thanos--” (Tony praised himself for not flinching at the name) “--are the Avengers. We’re the only ones the UN needs to hear from.”

“But,” Steve interrupted calmly, “if _certain members_ of former SHIELD leadership want to attend the summit, I’m sure that we can pull a few strings, Director.”

Tony tried to hide his smile at Steve’s neutral expression, knowing that Steve’s _inner_ expression was something closer to a raised eyebrow and a _“try me”_ glare. Apparently Fury knew it too, because he just grumbled something about _“ungrateful morons,”_ and promptly hung up the call.

“Well,” Tony said brightly. “That went well. I think after ten years, he’s finally starting to like us.”

Steve chuckled at that. “You and I have very different definitions of ‘like.’”

He grabbed his own sandwiches from the kitchen island (three meatball parms - Jesus, the man could really put it away), and grabbed the seat next to Tony. This time, Tony didn’t try to hide his smile as the super-soldier unashamedly scooted closer to him.

He and Steve had talked _a lot_ since he woke up from his post-battle coma, and yes, some of those talks had involved tears, but that was neither here nor there. The airing of shared grievances (in addition to extensive therapy) had done wonders for their relationship, and Tony couldn’t believe how much he had missed ( _or purposefully overlooked,_ a voice muttered in his head) when it came to Steve Rogers.

Before, Tony had misinterpreted so many aspects of Steve’s personality - dismissing him as self-righteous or arrogant or stubborn or naive. And yeah, sometimes Steve _was_ those things (sometimes he was all of them), but Tony could see now that most of the time, the man was just trying to stay afloat in a world that he fundamentally did not understand.

The historical and sociopolitical lessons that Steve had learned from T’Challa, Okoye, and Natasha in his two years on the run, followed by the five years after the Snap, had made him a more flexible, more responsible, and more intelligent man, and Steve seemed to be much happier for it, like he had been finally allowed to stop wearing an ill-fitting suit. In the midst of the Accords Crisis, Tony never could’ve imagined a future where he and Steve Rogers sat down and calmly discussed politics over lunch. And yet that was exactly what they were doing.

Then again, it wasn’t just that he and Steve had changed. It was also because Steve had apparently decided that he loved Tony so much that he would literally will the universe into bringing him back to life. Which was...a lot to think about, but Tony was slowly coming to terms with it, alright, give him a break.

“What did you think about T’Challa’s opening statement?” Steve asked.

“It’s good. Solid. Optimistic and ‘looking towards the future’ - it’s what we need.” Tony took another bite of his sandwich as he glanced at the super soldier. “And he’s the right one to do it. But that doesn’t mean that the UN doesn’t need to hear from Captain America too.”

Steve sighed. “They _will_ hear from Captain America. Sam is going to testify.”

“Yeah, you know that’s not what I meant,” Tony rolled his eyes. “This whole ‘taking a break’ thing is fine - good, even, I totally approve - and it’s not like I really have any ground to stand on, with the whole ‘benched for the foreseeable future’ thing, but--”

“You’re worried that I’ll regret it,” Steve finished, looking expectantly at him.

Tony pursed his lips. “Yeah.”

Steve smiled and looked down at his food. “Maybe I will. Maybe in a few months, or a year or two. But it’s still something that I have to do.

“Remember when you told me about Rhodes, and how giving him the War Machine armor was like sharing a burden?"

Tony nodded, seeing where the other man was going with this. “A burden that I didn’t even realize was weighing me down.”

“It’s like that. I’ve been Captain America for so long…” Steve sighed, shaking his head, “...I don’t know if I remember how to be anyone else. And I want to remember. I want to remember how to be Steve Rogers again. Handing over the shield - sharing that burden - will help, I think.

“Besides...Sam?” Steve grinned. “Sam will be great. Sam will be better than I was.”

“I don’t know about that,” Tony laughed. “You were pretty good, even with some rough patches.”

“So were you, Tony.”

“Oh, come on, don’t say that like I’m dead--” Steve grimaced as Tony waggled his eyebrows “--I’m still Iron Man. I’ll always be Iron Man, just like you’ll always be Captain America. We’re just...becoming something new, too.”

“Yeah,” Steve said contemplatively, taking another bite of his sandwich. “Something new.”

The two sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes as they finished their lunches. Tony stretched with a satisfied sigh, wincing a little as his new mech arm tugged at his still healing skin.

“How is it feeling today?” Steve asked, trying not to look concerned but failing miserably.

Tony smiled indulgently. “It’s doing fine, Cap. The micro-injections of Extremis are healing the amputation site well - the skin is just a little raw. Soon I’ll be ready to go and take on your other mech-armed best friend.”

Steve rolled his eyes, and it was a testament to their newly healed friendship that neither of them flinched at the mention of Barnes. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled at the chance to test Wakandan tech against Stark tech.”

“Oh please,” Tony scoffed. “ _Shuri_ will be thrilled, and I am under no illusions as to who will be the winner in _that_ contest.”

“Tony Stark showing humility?” Steve raised a cheeky eyebrow, and yep, there was definitely still a part of Tony that wanted to punch him in his perfect teeth. “Maybe the world really did end.”

“You know, I _did_ almost die for the entire universe,” Tony shot back, smiling despite himself. “I think that shows a little humility.”

“Keyword being ‘almost.’” Steve wrapped up the remaining half of his parm and got up to put it back in the communal fridge. “I did save you, remember?”

“Who could forget?” Tony asked sarcastically. “Only you could be so stubborn, Rogers.”

“Right back at ya, Shellhead,” Steve slipped into his Brooklyn accent as he glanced back at Tony with a mischievous grin, and hell, how had Tony ever believed that this man was Mr. Goody Two Shoes?

Tony stood up - proud that his legs shook only slightly when he did so - and sighed as he brushed the crumbs off his shirt. “When’s that meeting with the Pyms again?”

“Three o’clock,” Steve answered, glancing at his phone screen and correcting, “So, right about now.”

Tony sighed again. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

He smiled as Steve walked over to him. After all of these years, all it had taken was the near end of the universe and one of them dying to reconcile and actually learn to like each other. Tony could’ve done without the dying part, but if he was being completely honest, maybe it hadn't been too bad, if it had given him back his family.

Steve straightened his shirt and gestured in the direction of the conference room. “Ready?”

Tony smiled, genuinely this time. “Yeah. Let’s get to work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this short little fic! I wrote most of it immediately after Endgame, but I got stuck on this epilogue part and only found the will to finish it recently.
> 
> Also, RIP Chadwick. You will be missed. #LongLiveTheKing


End file.
